"Blue on Blue."

By: Anthony Hummerston.

STARRING:

STARRING
'Mama',   Rojic,   Jimmi,   Karnov,   Niall,   Kory,  
And introducing:
Joe-90 and Hen3ry
as the droids.

AND
Storm Cutter
their ship.

Jimmi gasps. Niall gasps. A few minutes later Karnov gasps. Between them they can feel ripples in the force. Within this are four distinct force blips. -And dark-side blips at that.

“They’re coming!”

Kory hushes them with a quiet, but insistent. “Shhh!”

Karnov hisses “But how can they know we’re here if they don’t know we’re here….? -Or something.”

Jimmi says. “The force!”

Karnov asks. “What’s that then?”

There is a collective slap of palms to foreheads at this comment. They roll their eyes, and get into position. Their trips around the room form a complex Bézier curve spaghetti mess in several non-Euclidian dimensions.

“It's as tangled as Rojic’s ginger whiskers.”

“My whiskers aren’t tangled, they’re plaited, and it took me a long time to grow them. -And they’re not ginger!”

“A good thing they’re not ginger. That’d be another reason to hate you!”

The dark-side blips are coming along the corridor outside the room. Our heroes are ready to pounce. Karnov says “I can also make out an indistinct grating-whining noise, and for once it isn’t from the Toydarian.”

Rojic responds. “I don’t like Jedi!”

Jimmi says. “Well, if you don’t like it, leave it on the side of your plate and don’t eat it!”

Karnov is quizzical. “Rojic, just why are you with us anyway.”

Rojic puffs out his chest, and spreads his arms wide. “I’m attracted to Glory. -And power. –And riches. -And status. -And…. -And power!”

“You said power twice.”

“I like power!”

Niall mutters under his breath. “Boy, did you ever choose the wrong crew!”

Mishearing Rojic, Jimmi asks. “T’pau? Who is she?”

“Or he?”

“Or he….Are you saying she looks like a man?”

“I dunno. Must be one of those weird galaxies where everyone lives in a utopian peace and space farers treat everyone as equals….Ladies dress as men and the Jedi are but a distant memory.”

Karnov interrupts. “‘Stupid-world’ I call it!”

Kory says, “-Anyway, if you ever went there, I’m sure they’d crown you as their king!”

Expecting trouble at any second they wait and wait and wait…..

-And the blips on their force radar start to pass them by….. “How can they have missed us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we don’t ping off their Jedi radar like they ping off ours.”

“Jedi radar? Wouldn’t that be ‘Jaydar’ or something?”

Niall says. “Well, I’m just sorry about not living up to your expectations.”

Jimmi chips in. “Yeah, I bet Kory hears that a lot!”

Kory looks over with a glance that will melt tungsten. ^{[ 41 ]} She asks. “Who invited him along anyway?”

“He’s a Toydarain. They just pop up without any help from anyone.” Kory laughs. “Kinda like my ex-boyfriend…. If you know what I mean!"

“I think I do. Though I could interpret that statement in one of two ways….”

The party outside the door are passing it by. Jimmi asks. “What are we going to do?” Niall says. “Actually, I’m only here until orders tell me different.” He thinks for a moment and then adds. “I’m just waiting for the day that I get the order to kill you all and steal all the treasure. –Then I can live on a beach planet with hot and cold running Twi’lek girls.”

Karnov looks at him. In a quiet voice he says. “Is it any wonder you failed the academy?”

“I didn’t fail. I just wasn’t selected to be someone’s whipping boy.”

“I am not a whipping boy!” He pauses and then says. “My master told me so!”

Niall reminds him. “Youngling, Padawan, Jedi, Force ghost. You’re already over half way along your journey.”

Kory asks. “Anyway, what are we going to do about the blips on the dark side of the force, currently passing us by? Are we going to stand here and bicker them to death?”

Jimmi looks into the force. He can see four distinct disruptions behind the door. Unknowingly he may have alerted them to his presence.

Niall offers to confront them. “I’ll go out there, and ask them to surrender. I’ll show them my Jedi service corps badge.”

“They see that badge, and they’ll likely kill you on the spot.”

Niall thinks for a second. “I’ll put my thumb over the ‘Jedi’ part.”

Jimmi says. “I’ve got a ‘Jedi’ badge.”

The others snigger. “That’s what you think it says!”

Jimmi asks. “Why, what does it say?”

“Just think about why everyone you ever meet kicks you in the shins.”

“I thought that was how every other alien says hello.”

“Well take off the badge, and they might say it differently!”

Rojic tries to lighten the mood. “Any food left?”

“How can you think of eating at a time like this?”

Rojic isn’t listening. He dives on the remaining salad. After a few mouthfuls, he suddenly backs away and yelps. “Eew! There’s a slug in the salad!”

The others look around fearfully to see whether Tingear has heard this. “Shh!”

Rojic is apologetic. “Oh, Sorry!”

Tingear turns around. “Sie batha ne beechee, weenee sleema-mookey?” ^{[ 42 ]}

Jimmi says. “I think there might be soup left, though it’s a bit thin and watery and smells of fish.” Karnov shoots him a glance. “That’s the finger bowl. -Stupid!” Jimmi thinks for a moment then asks, “Then what’s that bone-china bowl that’s attached to the floor, full of water?” Karnov tells him. “That’s the bidet!”

Kory steers them back to the situation. Outside, the blips in the dark force are still passing by the door. ^{[ 43 ]}

Karnov offers to confront the enemy at the gates, or more specifically passing the door. “I could accost them and see what they are up to. I’d ask them impossible questions, and interrogate them. We Jedi are known for our intelligence. –And I’m as bright as any.”

Dryly, Jimmy says. “Only in the same way that a thirty watt bulb is brighter than a twenty-five watt bulb.”

Niall points out the irony. “Not that you can tell the difference anyway.”

“True.”

Rojic says. “Remind me to remove all the bulbs from Jimmi’s cabin when we get back to Storm Cutter.”

Kory says. “There aren’t any bulbs in there anyway.”

“How do you know? Have you been in Jimmi’s cabin…..”

“Er….Um…..I don’t wish to incriminate myself. I just know that Mama sold everything on Storm Cutter that could be unbolted.”

“It’s only luck then that the life support system and the hyperdrive are hard-wired in.”

Niall has managed to cross the room, and into the next. He listens at the door until the last footsteps have passed.

He manages to deaden the sound of the sliding door opening, and lets it glide open in three milliseconds. Rojic hisses at him. “Step all the way through, or you’ll find yourself on both sides of the door when it closes!”

Inaudibly the door hums. “Share and enjoy!”

Niall grins back. In a whisper he says. “It’s okay. I know. -Besides, it’s not as dangerous as the vane-access doors on Bespin.”

“That’s only the second-quickest closing door in the galaxy.”

“What’s the first?”

“The door to Kory’s cabin, when a man steps in!”

Niall steps out to see a Hutt on a sled, whom he assumes is Dew’lin. The massive Hutt is flanked by four humanoids and several battle droids. These aren’t the puny B1 type battle droids, but assassin droids, the IG88 series. The last one looks around. “E chu ta?” it grates in it’s metallic voice.

“E chu ta -to you too!” Niall mouths back silently.    [ † ]

Dew’lin is deep in conversation with his entourage. They consist of a robed figure, a Twi’lek woman, a Zabrak and two others, possibly humans.

Niall overhears one of the agents say. “The repairs to the ship will take considerable time, your Huttness.” Then Dew’lin asks one of them a question. “You say months of work to reattach your equipment?” Niall almost laughs out loud. He stuffs his fist into his mouth. The battle droid turns away and Niall looks for the source of the squeaking. Straggling along behind the main group is a dark coloured astromech droid. Its wheel bearings squealing and rattling a bit. Niall looks back into the room. Karnov shakes his head when Niall offers to blast everyone in the other group. Instead he steps back into the room, and holds the door open. He then uses the force to redirect the astromech droid into the room toward the waiting Rojic, who has seen an opportunity, and is ready to swoop down with a few gadgets and gizmos in one hand, and his spotters guide to droids in the other. Under the influence of the force, the droid starts to veer to their side of the corridor. The assassin droid strides over and kicks it solidly in the side, and tells it to hurry up. Rojic has since vacated to the ceiling and is hiding behind the chandelier. The assassin droid turns to join the others again. Niall uses the force to redirect the droid into the room once more.

The little astromech fades left and into the room. In an instant, Rojic is prying off a panel and plugging in a box of tricks. “This should download all the data from its core. Quicker and less noticeable than actually removing its electronic brain.”

“And then what?”

“We find out where it’s been. -And possibly where it’s bound.”

“How long will it take?”

“A couple of minutes.”

“We don’t have a couple of minutes! As soon as mister pencil-neck droid looks around again, or someone helpfully says ‘where’s our astromech droid?’ they start blasting, the Hutts put death markers on us and we’re screwed!”

Rojic flutters away. “There you go little droid, you can go. Pip pip!” The droid tootles happily and starts back along it's route.

Kory looks down at the droid. Rojic’s box it still attached. “But the box!”

“Still downloading.”

“Speed it up!”

“No time. This isn’t a ‘hello, data-burst, hello data-burst to you too’ type of conversation. -It takes time!”

They punch the controls to open the doors. Rojic gathers a handful of magnetic screws from his pouches, and flings them at the droid’s wheel motors, where they add to the horrible squealing and grinding noise of it’s passage along the passage. This is enough to alert the assassin droid again, who strides over, and tells it in no uncertain terms to hurry up.

The astromech follows grating and whining even more. Rojic is counting down in Huttese. When he reaches zero, he nods to Niall. Niall concentrates and the data box detaches and whips back to his hand. With the other he attaches a tracking bug, and then pops the door shut and steps back. “Did you see that droid?” Niall asks. “It had a deflector dish on the top.”

“Detector droids are in your area. They can look into your ship and look at what you’re watching!”

Jimmi says. “Maybe it’s a disintegrator.”

“No disintegration….Without representation!”

Kory is dying to know something. “Pip pip? Is that how you talk to droids?” Rojic is adamant. “Not all droids, but that's how Mama used to talk to Hen3ry sometimes.”

Kory tells him. “No human can speak astromech. I think she said ‘pip pip’ only because he's got two lumps on the top of his head!”

“Oh!”

Kory decides to eavesdrop more of the conversation between Dew’lin and the enemy agents. She creeps along a veranda and hovers there, ears straining. Dew’lin is telling the group of agents about their fortunes. “Capital ship? Do you know how much they are? They’re certainly not cheap. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of credits!”

Karnov and the others are discussing their next move. “Well I reckon that the agents will head back to their ship to report back to Roake Khan.”

Niall wonders. “And after that?”

Rojic speculates. “Well, they appear to be having a bit of trouble with their ship. The crystal deployment system is obviously not easily retro-fitted to any old ship. It would appear that they need quite some time in a shipyard away from prying eyes to get it fixed.”

Meanwhile, Kory has been spotted. A bodyguard Droid comes over. Kory plays the innocent. She gets out what looks like a death stick, and rolls it up. She pats her pockets as if to look for a lighter. The droid is buying it for a minute, and then starts forward again. At that point, it is recalled back to the group, and returns.

Kory breathes a sigh of relief, and then coughs convincingly to add to the effect. The agents are saying their farewells to Dew’lin, and are leaving. One says to the other. “The speeder is this way.” There is a pause. Then the Twi’lek woman grins and tells them. “No. We’ll take this shuttle.”

“But how are we going to get it open?”

She lights up a lightsabre. “Leave that to me!”

Kory realises that they are going to steal our heroes’ shuttle. –And it is only a hire shuttle at that!

Kory gathers the others. They start to hustle along the corridor and out into the lobby. They start dodging around other visitors and probably don’t hand in their visitor badges. “We didn’t need any stinkin’ badges anyway!” They spill out into the remains of the gardens.

Artists impression of a shuttle upon a smooth green lawn, with a crowd of antagonistic people and a green monster.

By this time, the Twi’lek girl has sliced effortlessly through the catches on the shuttle door, and is ushering the other enemy agents inside. Our heroes make the front entrance, and fan out onto the comfy lawn with blasters drawn. There are some nice little ornamental box hedges to hide behind, which prove to be effective cover.

Niall yells at them “Hey! That’s our shuttle!”

Rojic can’t believe his ears. “You mean you don’t care about damage to Storm Cutter, but if someone scratches a hire shuttle, you start getting mad?”

“But it’s ours! They’re stealing it!”

“Well, they do need the money. Even a hire shuttle is worth eighty thousand or more. Besides, Tingear paid the bill.”

“Oh yeah.” He yells at the Twi’lek girl. “Go right ahead!”

Kory points out that it is their only transport home, and that it will be quite a long walk.

“On second thoughts, stop!”

Rojic pulls off a ten-G ascent to high altitude. From here he can direct the battle from extreme blaster range. The others take careful aim at the enemy and open fire.

Jimmi can’t actually see what is going on. “Maybe it’s an innocent mistake.”

“How’s that?”

“They might have mistaken their shuttle for ours. After all, they all look the same to me.”

“If it were theirs, they wouldn’t be using a light sabre to cut a hole in the door!”

“Even so, they might be on important Jedi business. An innocent mistake.”

Karnov yells back between blaster shots. “Innocence is to be determined….” Blam! Blam Blam! “Post mortem!”

Kory yells at the agents, who are wrenching the door off the shuttle. “That’s Tingear’s shuttle you idiots!” Rojic follows up in Huttese, using a stream of graphic expletives. “Karking horsso rustuu shutoo pincha, nerf herda lowdun, despicoo Rowdoo stikka; tentoo-hedda keepuna kung!” ^{[ 44 ]}

Their blaster shots are somewhat under range. They move forward carefully, shooting and getting closer. The agents are keeping their heads down and retreating up the shuttle’s ramp.

Niall takes up a position at long range. His shot arcs across the gap, and just impacts on the surface of the shuttle. A greeble is slightly singed, but there is no appreciable fall-off. “Wrong scale!” he curses to himself. Kory is concentrating fire on one of the flanking battle droids. She blasts it in the chest, and a shower of sparking metal shards rain down. The droid staggers back a step. A good hit! Karnov blasts away, but his shot misses the Twi’lek woman, and passes harmlessly under the shuttle. Jimmi uses the others’ shots as cover to work a little closer, and shoots back. He hits the battle droid, and more sparks scatter in all directions. Rojic pulls out his little gun, and takes careful aim. From his high altitude, he hits the Twi’lek woman, who is ordering the battle droids forward to cover their retreat. She takes a wound to the chest. Just to make sure the camera zooms in on the impact spot.

Rojic is starting to think that this fight is going his way. He starts getting a little bolder, despite his instinctive cowardice. Kory chips a spot off the advancing battle droid. It’s the minimum amount of damage, but it ironically puts out the damage indicator light. Niall follows her lead, blasting it for all he’s worth. The droid is stopped dead in its tracks. Though still upright, it has taken quite a pasting. Karnov is shooting at the Twi’lek, hoping that another couple of shots will finish her off. She waves her lightsabre at the bolts of plasma, but doesn’t manage to deflect them. Rojic tries his luck too, but misses critically, not even getting close. The gods of bad luck start circling around him. Switching tactics, Force lightning starts playing out from her outstretched fingers, reaching for him, and sending crackling blue sparks his way. He neatly dives beneath the attack.

“That’s one hell of a bug zapper!” Niall starts to say, then he starts to cough. The woman has turned her attention to him, and is using the force to squeeze at his throat. “There’s…..Still…” Cough! “Time…” Cough splutter choke…! “To save….” Gasp, wheeze! “To save…” Choke, gasp! “The battle….” Cough, gasp! “Plan!”

“Could you repeat that? I lost track after you said “There’s still….”

“I think he’s trying to say… ‘Stop!’”

Karnov can see that Niall is in trouble. To break the woman’s concentration he blasts her again. Kory misses her. Jimmi hits her, Rojic misses (critically) again. The grip on Niall’s throat tightens. His eyes bulge, and his nostrils flare. He bares his teeth in a death grimace. He goes a funny colour, not unlike that of Rojic.

“Niall you’re turning into a Toydarian, stop it!”

Rojic feels the need for some speedy and thrilling heroics. He decides to swoop down and smash the woman in the face. He pulls a steep dive, a sharp turn, adds a fade left for effect, and aims for her head. At the final moment she spies him diving out of the glare of the sun, and puts up her lightsabre to fend Rojic off. There being no time to correct the dive, she sweeps the weapon down, and Rojic falls at her feet like a stone. This is all the distraction the others need, and they blast her. She falls to one knee, the lightsabre close to slicing Rojic into more parts, before it extinguishes, and she drops fully to the floor. The battle droids are the last to embark, and even the astromech droid is ascending the ramp. Two of the droids manage to get on board, leaving one assassin droid to face the stunned crew on the ground. They are still gasping at the violence meted out to Rojic, and wondering if he’s still alive. Niall puffs out his chest with renewed vigour, and with a tinge of anger sweeps his hand to one side. The assassin droid shoots, but its body is flung into the sputtering ion engine. The engine flares, and the droid is obliterated. Several white-hot chunks scatter outward, making the crew keep their heads down. The shuttle engine starts to smoke as its lifts clear of the garden. The astromech wobbles a little on the edge of the ramp before finding grip, and slowly ascending. The ramp starts to close and the little droid is soon accelerating down along it into the interior of the shuttle. Rising slowly, the shuttle pulls a half turn, one wing dips a little and then streaks off over the city, leaving a crackling plasma trail behind it.

Our remaining heroes amble over toward Rojic’s body. As they get nearer, they can determine two distinct parts of his body. There is a big chunk of his head missing.

“Here’s the chunk! It’s the size of a side plate.”

“Or a side of a sizable plate.”

“Is he alive?”

“Just keep looking at the chunk. There’s no hurry for first aid…Or last rights for that matter.”

“What would he say if the situation was reversed?”

Niall thinks for a moment. “He’d say…..Ooh! Nice lightsabre, can I keep it? –And is there anything else of value on the woman’s body?”

“Point taken. He treats life and death as a simple matter of black and white.”

“Or life and death.”

Jimmi crouches down to the prone body of the Toydarian. Kory bends down too. Like a child she picks up the piece of skull and tries to put it back in place. It drops off.

Karnov is sanguine. He looks at the pale blue body of the enemy agent. And the darker shade of Rojic. “Classic scenario: Blue on blue.” ^{[ 45 ]}

The others fall about laughing, until they realise what he’s said. Finally they assess whether Rojic has survived. Niall feels for a pulse. There is one, though rather weak. “He’s alive, but just barely!”

“Good. We can keep him in a box by the bed.”^{[ 46 ]}

“Damn. The good bad-luck gods have deserted us in out moment of need.”

They are still working this out while they place Rojic on the back of a landspeeder. Niall and Karnov gather up the Twi’lek woman’s body and personal effects and place these on too. – Possibly more reverentially than the fallen Rojic. Karnov leaps aboard and revs the engine. “Where to people?”

“Just a minute, my tentacle munching friend, where did you get this speeder?”

“It belonged to the group that just stole our shuttle.”

“But that’s theft!”

Kory says. “Theft is property, therefore anything not bolted down that was theirs is ours now, coz they owe us for a shuttle, so it’s not stealing, it’s a fair exchange, -only they robbed us. Karking teftoo nior-jedi Kung!”

“Hold on a minute Kory, I’m still working out the good bad luck gods and the bad good luck gods, and whether its good luck Rojic’s alive or not dead. But I love it when a posh bird talks dirty!”

“Well you can take a long walk and work it out, or come with us on the speeder.”

Naill turns around from the passenger seat. “Do we ride, or do we parley?”

Kory jumps on. “We ride!”

With that, Karnov gives it full throttle, and they swoop through the narrow and twisty streets of Hunter’s city. To enhance the effect of his brilliant piloting, he speeds through narrow gaps, under arches, knocks over dustbins, and then whizzes along the street scattering bits of newspaper in his wake. To top it off he performs a barrel roll, slips around a corner on no wheels. ^{[ 47 ]} He narrowly avoids two aliens carrying a pane of glass across the road, does a spin around the Lingotto building test track and zooms at R17 speed back toward Storm Cutter. There they disembark. The workmen place the pane of glass down carefully, and put parcel tape over it so nobody can walk into it. Unfortunately Karnov steps off the clutch too soon, and the speeder lurches forward, Rojic’s body shoots out the front, and breaks the glass into a million shards.

They assess Rojic’s injury. “Put him in the Bacta tank for a start.” There is a pause and then a grating sound as the lid is removed. Then there is a pronounced ‘Sploosh!’ Karnov returns, and they get back to discussing Rojic's condition.

“By the way, did you see any brains inside his head?”

“Well, not as such, but there’s a great echo!”

“How did it sound?”

“Echo…. Echo…. Echo…. Echo…. Echo…. Echo….!”

“Aha!”

“Not ‘aha!’ –‘Echo!’”

“Oh!”

“Not ‘oh! -Ech....’ –Oh never mind!”

“What’s that you said? Never mind?”

“There’s a bit of an echo in here.”

Niall says seriously. “I think we’ve done that joke to death.”

“Talking of death, you did put a breather mask on Rojic, didn’t you?”

“Er…” Karnov rushes back up the ramp, and into the medical bay. The prone figure of Rojic is belly-up in the Bacta, swimming in that certain way that a dead fish doesn’t. At least he’s a shade of jade now. Karnov attaches the mask, and comes back down the ramp.

After about ten minutes, Niall asks. “You did turn on the tanks didn’t you?”

Karnov once again runs up the ramp to turn on the Bacta reprocessing plant. Soon a stream of bubbles are rising up the tank. He chucks in a lump of wax, and soon it’s like a lava lamp glowing green with wobbly bits in it. When he returns, Niall raises an eyebrow. “All okay now?”

“All okay. Only there seems to be a dead fly floating in the top of the tank!”

“Eeew!”

Karnov thinks. The others start some research. Finally Karnov says. “I turned the Bacta tank control to the little circle symbol, surrounded by arrows.”

“That’s the recycle programme. Where all the Bacta gets passed through the filters…” They all try to imagine what size the holes in the filters are, and whether the remains of Rojic will pass through. “Maybe you should’ve set it on ‘delicate wash’ first.”

Kory says “That’s the last time I have a bath in there then!”

Kory and Naill have got a fix on where they think the shuttle went. They look on ‘Google Ylesia,’ and zoom in. They can see several hangars, where spaceships are repaired or scrapped. Not too far away, is a strange ship, fitting the description of Rose Wanderer. Two ships to check out!

Niall hefts his blaster carbine. “Time to get our ship back!”

“I second that!” Jimmi yells. “Just point me to it!”

Kory says. “Wait just one more moment.” They wait….-And wait….-And wait….

Finally there is a ‘ping’ form the Bacta tank and Rojic goes into the spin cycle….

TO BE CONTINUED...... NEXT EPISODE.

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Footnotes. (Click numbers to return to the story.)

[ 41 ]   Tungsten being the element with the highet melting point.
[ 42 ]   'Are you talking about me, little grease monkey?'
[ 43 ]   –Logic dictates that even continental drift goes faster than that, but this sequence is obviously directed by Gerry Anderson – in greatly-extended-peril-o-sequence-o-vision.
[ 44 ]   You (expletive-ing) horse-rustling; shuttle-pinching; nerf-herding; lowdown, despicable Rodian-fornicating; tentacle-headed damned scum!
[ 45 ]   Actually blue on blue is a friendly fire incident, not hostile action between opposing antagonists.
[ 46 ]   A reference to a song. 'Jennifer's Body.'
[ 47 ]   Of course a landspeeder has no wheels to go around any corners.